NydiaMccartney answers:

You can’t know how much wood you need until you have a plan. So draw out a plan for what you want, and then see how much wood you’d need. If you are poor at visualization, make a model out of cardboard.

NydiaMccartney answers:

Well, to “route” is to carve out, so I do believe what he means is that some guitars have cavities that were routed out from the front or from the back.

This would lead me to conclude that Strats are front routed, while Les Pauls would tend to be rear routed.

This is not an authoritive answer, I would suggest googling. Use words like “build guitar route cavity” or “restore front route cavity guitar” or some such.

Saul

NydiaMccartney answers:

Hercules are good but Go to a music shop and have a look at some and see which is the best built and the most sturdy

NydiaMccartney answers:

I recently bought a Hercules. It is designed so the front has to arms that prevent the guitar from sliding forward off the hanger. When you lift the guitar, the arms automatically open. I have a Fender Dreadnought Grand Acoustic (solid wood and very heavy) hanging on it, and it is holding very well. Make sure you follow the directions when you install it. You’ll want to make sure you use a drill to make uniform holes, and the proper studs inside the holes for your type of wall.

NydiaMccartney answers:

My son swears by Hercules stands. He’s got a 3-fer that holds the guitars by the headstock (so it will work just fine with your Thunderbird). The reviews all look good for this product, and I can tell you first hand it’s built very solid!

They’re about $87 at Musician’s Friend

http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/product/Hercules-Stands-GS432B-Tri-Stand-Guitar-Stand?sku=453084

Greetings from Austin, TX

Ken

NydiaMccartney answers:

The rule of thumb is that used gear sells for about half of new gear. That guitar sells for $569 new so you’d get around $285 for yours. Here’s the new one:

http://www.activemusician.com/item–EM.WSH-NV100CN

NydiaMccartney answers:

How aspiring? I think you may be focused on the wrong aspect of playing the guitar,
but the cost of the paint job will depend entirely on who you hire and what you ask them to do
I would think an automobile custom paint shop/person – the kind who does candy apple metallic coats and air brush detailed images might fit your mind set – and you would have to ask them – probably $50-250 at a guess.

NydiaMccartney answers:

It can be done highly complicated and sometimes very expensive, or quite straightforward and cost effective.

However, for a total beginner, you’d probably need some more handholding than can be achieved here. The main point is to know enough about audio interfaces, sound cards and software/hardware options, so that you don’t paint yourself into a corner – or risk spending way too much money to achieve a basic set up.

My best advice to you is to go to good old uncle Google and type in a specified search query “recording guitar to computer”. You will get up a number of sites, including youtube videos about this issue.

When you have read a little about the issue, you can ask more specific questions about the various parts in the chain.

That said, the first two parts of the puzzle you would need is a guitar (duh) and a decent PC or Mac. If you’re on a Mac, then you should already have Garage Band installed – a great free program.

Then you could use your built in sound card to interface the guitar with the computer. Problem is latency (a type of delayed signal – big problem), noise and sound quality. So you would likely, at least eventually, need to upgrade you sound card. You can read about this here: http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=155303

You can alternatively have an outboard audio interface, hooked up through USB or Firewire. These are usually more flexible, but also likely more expensive, even though some of these external audio interfaces comes bundled with basic recording software. You can read more here: http://www.tape.com/resource/audio_interfaces_for_computer.html

As for software to record your music, you have any number of options. The free Audacity is one. However, this is more an audio editing tool than a multi track recording application. For Mac you have the free, great Garage Band (another reason to use Mac). And then you have all sorts of solutions where the sky is the limit. Be aware that some of the heftier software packages and plug-ins require powerful computers to run smoothly!

Speaking of plug-ins… Guitar Rig and Amplitube are stand alone software applications (not for recording though), but they can also function as plug-ins when you record your guitar – or after your guitar has been recorded.

Alternatively, you can use an outboard multi effects unit and record your guitar directly that way.

As you probably can see, there are a lot of possible avenues to take. In order to do more qualified decisions for yourself, you should do some more studying about the topic before you get going.

Best of luck to you!

NydiaMccartney answers:

I would say go to a pawn shop and you could find a decent 30 watt for about 100-150. I’d say a roland cube 30 or cube 20 would do the trick and it has built in chorus, delay, reverb, flanger, 5 distortions, tremolo, phaser. And the effect you’re thinking of is chorus, really the roland cube 30 or 20 is the best idea and besides all that it sounds really good, and for a wah check ebay dont be fooled by bullshit like jimi hendrix wah or slash wah the stand Dunlop Crybaby wah sounds exactly the same and on ebay you can probably get all of that for $200.